Premier League: Resurgent Foxes Now Face the Best

Leicester City vs Manchester City

Manchester City can go top of the Premier League on Saturday when they open the curtains on another great weekend of football at the King Power Stadium in Leicester.

Leaders Arsenal don’t play until Sunday when Nottingham Forest visit the Emirates, and they will be expected to win, but Pep Guardiola can add a little pressure to his former assistant Mikel Arteta if he can guide the Sky Blues to another victory. But the timing of this fixture could have been better for the hot favourites.

Leicester made a shocking start to the campaign, after drawing their opener against Brentford, the Foxes lost their next six league games to leave them rock bottom and boss Brendan Rodgers under serious pressure. It was a strange position to be in for a team which has hovered around the top four in recent seasons, but a poor transfer window left them short on numbers at the start of the campaign.

Rodgers is a fine manager though and he has a talented group of players in his squad, so the Sky Blues are now about to face a side that has taken ten points from the last five games to lift them out of the bottom three. They come into the game on the back of a 4-0 thrashing of managerless Wolves, while Guardiola’s side beat Brighton 3-1, before playing out a goalless draw against Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League.

Talking Points

Goals in good supply for Leicester 

After a truly shocking set of Premier League 2022 results to kick off the Foxes’ campaign, a 2-1 defeat to Bournemouth has been the only poor result in Leicester’s last five games. They followed up a 4-0 win over Nottingham Forest, their first victory of the campaign, with defeat to the Cherries and then a goalless draw with Crystal Palace. Leicester’s home match against Leeds United ended in a 2-0 win and they made it back to back victories by smashing Wolves 4-0 at Molineux. 

With five goals James Maddison is top scoring and he was on target in the rout over Wolves, as were Harvey Barnes, Jamie Vardy and Youri Tielemans. When you look at the quality of those four creative players, as well as Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, then surely the Foxes will continue their climb away from trouble. Maddison in particular has been a revelation. After showing such promise as a young player he has had a couple of frustrating seasons, with off-field problems and inconsistency on the grass. But he is back to his best and Maddison’s dead ball kicks are a real threat.  

How can Foxes stop Haaland? 

The hosts don’t have much problem scoring goals but, without experienced defender Jonny Evans who is sidelined with injury, they will have a tough task to keep Manchester City’s scoring machine quiet. Erling BrautHaaland has plundered a whopping 17 goals in his first 11 game in the Premier League and that puts him on target for 58 in the campaign!

Haaland was substituted at half-time against Dortmund amidst concerns that he may have picked up a niggle and Guardiola said after the game: “I spoke with the medical staff at half-time and they were a little bit concerned, but I saw him walking more or less normally. We will see.”  

But Rodgers won’t wait for news coming out of the Etihad and he must prepare to face the big Norwegian. The obvious starting point is to somehow stop the supply coming from the excellent Kevin de Bruyne and that is easier said than done. Much will depend on defensive midfielders Wilfred Ndidi or Dennis Praet who must try to isolate the Belgian. But then there are player such as Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva who are also able to carve open a defence at will. 

Liverpool stunned Manchester City with a 1-0 win recently but with 16 shots and six on target Guardiola’s men had ample opportunity to score, but they were thwarted by Reds keeper Alisson. The Sky Blues’ midweek trip to Dortmund turned out to be another blank in front of goal and even while Haaland was on the pitch City failed to register a single shot on target in the first half.

So how do you stop Haaland? Cut off the supply as much as possible and hope your keeper has a blinder. But I suspect that sometimes the best approach is just to score goals at the other end!  

History

Manchester City have won 18 of their meetings with Leicester, in the Premier League era, while the Foxes have won eight and there have been four draws

Pep Guardiola’s team did the double last season with a 1-0 win at the King Power Stadium and a 6-3 victory at the Etihad as De Bruyne started a first-half rout which gave the Sky Blues a 4-0 lead at the break.   

Leicester have won three, drawn one and lost two of the last six while the Sky Blues have won four, drawn one and lost one.

Betting Tip

The Foxes are at SBOTOP odds of 8.20 to win this game and the draw at 6.18. The Premier League 2022 betting odds are right behind Manchester City to win the title, and to see off the Foxes at a price of 1.25, which I think they probably will.

But with Leicester exciting in attack and the Sky Blues simply sensational on their day I’m going for goals…and plenty of them!

 

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